Doom 2 level design is very gimmicky

[dististik]

1 hour ago, Professor Hastig said:

 

I am fairly certain that they were not added as a hazard but as an aid.

 

It could probably go either way, to be honest. Mancs and arachnotrons are especially bad with partial invisibility compared to other projectile attacking enemies and it feels like they were put in places especially easy to pick them up on accident. That said, I could see Sandy and American thinking it was a nice assist in a boss arena lol.

Edited March 3, 2023 by dististik

[Book Lord]

In all honesty, the OP writes and behaves exactly as who he declares to be: a person that has kept Doom & Doom II in a drawer for 30 years and only recently has decided to give them a try. His reactions and thoughts seem appropriate for the profile, since he did not feel how it was playing them back in the 90s, and he has not much knowledge of the community and its tropes & habits.

 

He sparked a decent discussion, surely nothing new to this community and probably trite & worthless for its oldest members, but I think it would be sensible to refrain from calling him a troll and from showing a dismissive attitude towards his statements. Let's be more welcoming, please.

 

Anyway, looking at Doom II in 2023 without a historical perspective is a bit strange indeed, considering it's a very old and seminal FPS game. Much has been said about it in 30 years, and the online community has gone very far from what Id established with their commercial products. It also went well beyond the joke experiment that was NUTS.WAD. Good insight can be found in the posts in this thread and in older discussions, and I am not recapping what others said very well.

 

The gameplay elements the OP calls into question are established parts of the Doom experience, like ambushing the player with monsters when approaching keys, items or crucial progression triggers. Doom II amps up the scale of the aggression and throws in a considerable number of new enemies that increased the threat. The level design is notably more boxy, less realistic, a bit rushed in parts, but not bad per se. As many others, I like abstract Doom II levels very much, even though I consider Ultimate Doom levels to be more compelling and somehow more realistic.

 

About Dead Simple,  it's a kind of boss level meant to introduce the Mancubus and the Arachnotron for the first time, and I can assure you that when I played it for the first time as a kid it was a shock and a memorable experience, more or less like the whole of Doom II. It naturally cannot be so nowadays, when most people complain whenever they see the nth "Dead Simple clone" in a megaWAD.

Edited March 3, 2023 by Book Lord

[Cursed Lemon]

Unless the "gimmick" involves some kind of brutally unplayable experience, gimmicks are a good thing. You want levels to stand out from each other and you want them to have both an aesthetic and functional theme. Now you can say that you absolutely hate the tightrope walking aspect of The Chasm or you think that Barrels O' Fun is just straight-up immersion breaking, a map being a gimmick doesn't mean it's above criticism, but trying to theme the play experience is a positive goal.

Edited March 3, 2023 by Cursed Lemon

[BlueThunder]

19 hours ago, TheSlipgateStudios said:

I dislike every the city level, the chasm, the pit and some others, Doom 1 is way superior than 2.

I couldn't agree more, I find myself going back to Doom more then Doom 2,  I guess they were trying to be different and bigger with Doom 2's maps

[zokum]

Just for fun I whipped up a quick mermaid graph of how progression could have been done to make the game more fun. Maps with secret exits are show as diamonds. You would need new secret exits on map06, map13, map20 and map28. I skipped map21 from the progression. I think map07 and map23 would be a lot more fun to have as secret maps. I also added map27 as a secret map because the theme doesn't quite fit in with anything else, and it has an eerie and mysterious feel to it. I could probably put 24 into a better spot, aftger 09 maybe, but I can't be arsed to redo the graph... The exact order isn't the point. The point is to shorten the main game down and add extra paths to increase the replay value. Alternative exits are fun!

[darmok]

12 hours ago, Eon Toad said:

You might be interested in this video, which shares a similar opinion. I never stopped to think about it before, but Doom and Doom 2 hit very differently for me, and I suspect the more devious puzzle box design of Doom 2 is why. I love it and love Plutonia for doubling down on it, but it's definitely not for everyone.

 

https://youtu.be/hh6glXpsQDE

 

So obviously I'm not the first person to have this opinion. Not sure why there is much hostility around here.

[GarrettChan]

It's because the tone and the sentences you phrased about your opinion, especially that "that's something I could have made" sentence.

 

Then, the actual curious thing I'm looking at now, is that, given the fact you have to make some maps about a city level, what can you make? Can you elaborate? Or better, make an actual map with vanilla limitation about a city. Using UDB is good enough, there's no real point going back to building a Doom map in 1994.

Edited March 3, 2023 by GarrettChan

[Uncle 80]

Doom (1): The superior game - in regards to aestethics, atmosphere, design and game play.

Doom 2: The ultimate resource wad to builld amazing new mapsets from.

 

And yes, others also recognized Doom 2's levels as more "gimmicky" already in the mid-to-late 90s. I might have elaborated further on the design, but I think I made most of my points clear back in '02. Doom 2 has a fair share of good/decent maps though.

[magicsofa]

At least their gimmicks still involved playing the game. Now the favorite gimmick in many games is endless "loot" and "xp" with no meaning other than to keep you addicted. I'll take the Chasm over double XP weekend any weekend

[darmok]

20 minutes ago, GarrettChan said:

It's because the tone and the sentences you phrased about your opinion, especially that "that's something I could have made" sentence.

 

Are you saying you can't make a level with a square room and an exit in the middle or a level full of 200 barrels or a level with a floor plan of your house? Because yeah I definitely could have made that.

 

Quote

Then, the actual curious thing I'm looking at now, is that, given the fact you have to make some maps about a city level, what can you make? Can you elaborate? Or better, make an actual map with vanilla limitation about a city. Using UDB is good enough, there's no real point going back to building a Doom map in 1994.

 

Map design in those days was always abstract even when they represented real world locations. That's because they prioritized gameplay over architectural realism. And no player complained about that in those days.

 

Given the limitations of the tech it wasn't a good idea to try to make a real city with streets and skyscrapers rather than just go for something that's fun. And why were they so concerned with realism all of a sudden? That's never been something associated with Doom.

Edited March 3, 2023 by darmok

[GarrettChan]

7 minutes ago, darmok said:

Are you saying you can't make a level with a square room and an exit in the middle or a level full of 200 barrels or a level with a floor plan of your house? Because yeah I definitely could have made that.

 

What Doom 2 map are you talking about? I don't recall a map looks like this.

 

7 minutes ago, darmok said:

Map design in those days was always abstract even when they represented real world locations. That's because they prioritized gameplay over architectural realism. And no player complained about that in those days.

 

Given the limitations of the tech it wasn't a good idea to try to make a real city with streets and skyscrapers rather than just go for something that's fun. And why were they so concerned with realism all of a sudden? That's never been something associated with Doom.

 

Yes. No player complained about that in those days. Then what's the point to say those map lack thoughts or there's no real effort into those maps in 2023? You title is talking about Doom 2 maps being very gimmicky, but in reality, your first post is talking about Doom 2 maps are lackluster and they are simple crappy things you can make in 1994. Maybe you didn't mean that, but the sentence you used, gave this impression to a lot of other people.

 

I've never thought they cared about realism. All the city levels are somewhat abstract in the design. Map16 is Sandy's house for sure, but can you tell what is what without him revealing his house to you or him saying that's his house?

 

Now this is to the point why there is hostility here. See, you say, a Doom 2 map is just literally a box with 200 barrels in it. Obviously it's not. Then you're talking about the tech limitation would steer designers away from city map designs. This sounds backwards. It's like they decided the plot is about demon invading a city and they made city maps for the game. Now I want to see given in the same plot, what map you could make, not like "I wouldn't write this plot to begin with".

Edited March 3, 2023 by GarrettChan

[Mr Masker]

49 minutes ago, darmok said:

 

So obviously I'm not the first person to have this opinion. Not sure why there is much hostility around here.

 

11 minutes ago, darmok said:

Are you saying you can't make a level with a square room and an exit in the middle or a level full of 200 barrels or a level with a floor plan of your house? Because yeah I definitely could have made that.

 

Yeah, I don't get why...

[GarrettChan]

4 minutes ago, Mr Masker said:

Yeah, I don't get why...

 

Sorry for my bad English, I wonder whether there would be a "/s" in your sentence?

[Faceman2000]

1 minute ago, GarrettChan said:

 

Sorry for my bad English, I wonder whether there would be a "/s" in your sentence?

Definitely sarcasm haha.

[darmok]

21 minutes ago, GarrettChan said:

 

What Doom 2 map are you talking about? I don't recall a map looks like this.

 

Dead Simple, Barrels of fun, Suburbs

 

21 minutes ago, GarrettChan said:

 

Map16 is Sandy's house for sure, but can you tell what is what without him revealing his house to you or him saying that's his house?

 

 

Yes I did. The map is called suburbs and I walk into a building with a garage door, front porch and living room. I recognized it immediately as being a house. Going to the wiki confirmed it.

[GarrettChan]

12 minutes ago, darmok said:

Dead Simple, Barrels of fun, Suburbs

Yeah, yeah, I don't know the definition of a square and I can't count to 200.

 

I was talking, you don't know that's "SANDY'S" house. Everybody knows that a house, OK? I treated it more like an easter egg instead of being laziness. Whatever floats your boat I guess.

 

Funnily, you only cherry picked the part that you can pick on my word usage to answer, without actually make a map to show how much you understand about the game, so basically I can only treat what you say as a fart.

Edited March 3, 2023 by GarrettChan

[Mr Masker]

26 minutes ago, GarrettChan said:

 

Sorry for my bad English, I wonder whether there would be a "/s" in your sentence?

Sorry, I'm not used to using the whole /s /srs thing. I don't use that many social media so it just kinda became a thing outside of my sphere.

[GarrettChan]

1 minute ago, Mr Masker said:

Sorry, I'm not used to using the whole /s /srs thing. I don't use that many social media so it just kinda became a thing outside of my sphere.

Well for a moment I think you're serious, so I asked. Or probably I should just ask whether you're being sarcastic about that.

[Mr Masker]

1 minute ago, GarrettChan said:

Well for a moment I think you're serious, so I asked. Or probably I should just ask whether you're being sarcastic about that.

Well to answer the original question, yeah I was being sarcastic. :)

[Amiga Angel]

On 3/2/2023 at 1:00 PM, Professor Hastig said:

 

There's one other thing here: Doom 2's textures are awfully generic. I wonder what might have been, had they had a texture pack more like Duke Nukem's with textures that actually match the visuals of a modern city. It would have been impossible for anyone with the available assets to make good city maps.

 

But be it as it may, I don't have any rose-tinted glasses to look at Doom's history. When I played Doom 2 for the first time I was quite disappointed that the whole game felt rather sloppy compared to its predecessor and this sentiment never really went away.

 

 

I would say that it is very possible to make better looking and more realistic looking city levels in doom by using a modern map editor, the default doom 2 textures and the vanilla map format... if the engine is limit removing then it would be possible to dial the detail up even more... but even in chocolate doom or the old timey dos doom exe... it is possible to do better it terms of visuals for city levels

 

However...

 

They were pioneers... their map editor was painfull and difficult to work with... the computers at the time were very limited...

 

I certainly couldnt have done better than they did if I had been in their situation, with the tools, tech and knowledge they had ... And I doubt there are any mappers alive today that could...

 

Today we can make better levels because we have better tech, better tools, more knowledge...

 

I tried using some of the old dos map editors in the 90s and... I wasnt able to use them to create anything remotely on par with anything in the IWADs...

 

Ultimate Doom Builder is LIGHTYEARS ahead of the old editors....

its almost beyond comprehension how much of an improvement it is compared to the ancient dos map editors...

especially the early ones...

Edited March 3, 2023 by Amiga Angel

[Shepardus]

3 hours ago, darmok said:

 

Are you saying you can't make a level with a square room and an exit in the middle or a level full of 200 barrels or a level with a floor plan of your house? Because yeah I definitely could have made that.

Level editors exist, of course I could make the level if I were to open one and click in all the right places. But I didn't, the guys at id Software did. I could say the same for any level.

 

You seem to be suggesting that simple levels and concepts are somehow less worthwhile and that, being the stuff of amateurs, they don't belong in a professionally made game. If that's what you're trying to say, I guess we have to agree to disagree.

[SleepyVelvet]

7 hours ago, zokum said:

~snip~ commentary on alternate map-to-map progression.

Yup, feels like it would've added dimensionality to the game (and if done in an intuitive and generalized way that wasn't an editting challenge, would've made the PWAD scene more flexible too).  Even though it's OG vanilla Doom 2, the fact that it's railroaded strictly into a linear map-to-map progression, save Map31 and 32, always bugged me and seems like a lost opportunity. 

 

Pertaining to "gimmick maps with less replayability"?  I don't think something like Hunted should ever be a secret map first playthrough, but should be on the harder-to-skip path.  You should have to know the secret to skip it, imo., and it should be clear you are skipping something if you stumble onto the skip.  (I'm also reminded of Super Mario's level skips; or Starfox 64's optional pathing, which also lets you undo your skip in the overworld menu...)  But anyways, I think Doom/Doom 2 has most of its important shit together so I can't complain much.

Edited March 3, 2023 by NoisyVelvet

[darmok]

The physical layout of the levels is only part of my complaint. If it was just that it wouldn't bother me so much.

 

It's more the gameplay that feels gimmicky.  I just finished the last few levels last night. Among them Monster Condo which is an entire level where dozens of monsters come out of hidden walls over and over.

 

Like I said I'm sure when this is the first FPS you ever played you wouldn't be this critical. But I still remember a lot of cynicism around Doom 2 in general when it came out. "The only new weapon is another shotgun. Its just an expansion pack." etc. Even back then I heard about the ridicule/frustration at infamous levels like Barrels and Chasm. 

Edited March 3, 2023 by darmok

[Fiber Wire]

As far as PC gamers go Doom II was many peoples first introduction to Doom outside of the shareware so they wouldn’t have cared that it just added new monsters and one gun. Doom for PC didn’t get a retail release until Ultimate Doom.. which came out after Doom II.

[Nine Inch Heels]

15 minutes ago, darmok said:

It's more the gameplay that feels gimmicky.  I just finished the last few levels last night. Among them Monster Condo which is an entire level where dozens of monsters come out of hidden walls over and over.

If you've ever done any mapping for classic doom at all, you'll know that there are 3 main ways to put down monsters such that they "interact" with the player.

 

-Pre-placed (mostly in the open)
-Closets that open, pits with fake floor that raise - basically anything that involves "active map geometry"

-Teleport closets

 

This is all you have to work with. In fact, these methods, and some abstractions thereof (ie some demon spawning other demons mid-fight like the IOS) are everything basically every video game ever has to work with. You're complaining that "video game does video game thing", so it should come as no surprise to you that these oversimplifications you are employing are surrounded by an air of disingenuity, to say the least.

 

26 minutes ago, darmok said:

Like I said I'm sure when this is the first FPS you ever played you wouldn't be this critical. But I still remember a lot of cynicism around Doom 2 in general when it came out. "The only new weapon is another shotgun. Its just an expansion pack." etc. Even back then I heard about the ridicule/frustration at infamous levels like Barrels and Chasm. 

Confirmation bias, ladies and gentlemen.

 

Doom2 was the first FPS I ever played, I was critical of it then, I am critical of it now - there's stuff I didn't like back then, there's stuff I don't like today (turns out some things were better than I thought they were, and some things I liked were not as great in the long run) - the difference between you and me is that I would at least be able to articulate my gripes with the game such that I don't end up with "genre-pioneering video game has flaws and contains stuff I don't like".

 

People rightfully call out your so-called criticisms as the drivel it mostly is, but that doesn't mean we do so because we can't take off the nostalgia goggles that you seem to think we're all wearing 24/7. The fact that you imply that sort of under the breath (see highlighted text in the quote above) says a lot more about you than you might expect.

 

You, with your decades worth of hindsight and your subjective tastes, are not as enlightened as you wish to be. If you had any actual interest in discussing anything in a meaningful way, you'd at least have the decency to lay out what exactly doesn't work for you, why it doesn't cut it, and, ideally, how it could be made better. Then we could have an actual conversation, but until then I maintain that this is low-effort trolling on your part, which I've wasted a regretful amount of time on.

 

I've seen all this before, dozens of times...

 

"I could have made this myself"

"Teleporting monsters in is bad, closets are bad, pre-placed monsters are bad, game is bad."

"You only love this game because it took your virginity"

 

Mate, we've seen it all, OK?

[Shepardus]

56 minutes ago, darmok said:

The physical layout of the levels is only part of my complaint. If it was just that it wouldn't bother me so much.

 

It's more the gameplay that feels gimmicky.  I just finished the last few levels last night. Among them Monster Condo which is an entire level where dozens of monsters come out of hidden walls over and over.

 

Like I said I'm sure when this is the first FPS you ever played you wouldn't be this critical. But I still remember a lot of cynicism around Doom 2 in general when it came out. "The only new weapon is another shotgun. Its just an expansion pack." etc. Even back then I heard about the ridicule/frustration at infamous levels like Barrels and Chasm. 

Monster Condo is one of my favorite levels in Doom II, so I don't see what the problem with it is. Yes, it heavily features walls opening up to reveal packs of monsters, but is there anything wrong with that compared to, say, monsters standing around waiting for the player to find them? Why is one a "gimmick" while the other is just "normal level design"? I like how the level starts with you in a dark and quiet place (good choice of music for that, too) and collapses into demonic chaos as you explore it, and I think the way enemies are brought into play does a lot for that. It wouldn't be as effective otherwise. Now, if every level were like that, then yeah, you may have a problem with lack of variety, but this is one level out of over 30. Each level is pretty short, so I think it works in their favor for them to be focused on specific concepts rather than try to cover the checklist of everything "normal" in every map.

[Aaron Blain]

Anybody ever play Chip's Challenge? Like, actually get past the first 2 or 3 stages and into the meat of the game?

 

Some games have level design that creates new kinds of gameplay beyond what's inherent in the game itself. While I admit I'm also partial to Doom 1, I do have recognize Doom 2 for what it achieves in this respect.

 

And we're not talking like a classic Naughty Dog, Insomniac or Rockstar game. I fuckin love Jak and Spyro, but those are huge bundles of minigames. Doom 2 is a game that rearranges the same pieces to create significantly different kinds of gameplay.

 

I finally started really grokking ROTT this past year and it also has some really creative level design. There's a map, early in episode 2, that has no baddies. It's a very Chip's Challenge style puzzle where you're just hunting for pushwalls while dodging fireballs and spinblades, figuring out how you can safely traverse the level as stuff continuously gets rearranged. Yeah it's not sophisticated in terms of the core combat, but the exploration and level design make it a great game.

 

I might even go so far as to say this is one of the features that makes Doom 2  a proper sequel, on top of how transformational the SSG and the new baddies are.

 

edit: And on top of that, I think Doom 2's level design is one of the reasons Doom became a fully-fledged subculture instead of just a classic game. You can play different genres of wads in vanilla (adventure, combat puzzle, etc.) that are almost like playing an entirely different videogame.

Edited March 4, 2023 by Aaron Blain

[Cursed Lemon]

Jalad would not approve

[LoatharMDPhD]

On 3/2/2023 at 6:45 AM, esselfortium said:

You're thinking of his Doom 1 levels.

 

It will always be funny to me that the flat corridors made in two months running up against a deadline are frequently considered a better and more polished work than the Doom 2 levels they spent 9 months on with much more accumulated knowledge and experience to draw on. It's like people are more concerned with whether a Doom map represents a real place (hint: there is no map in any iwad that even remotely does this, and this is a feature) than they are about whether it's fun and interesting to play?

not correct. suburbs is literally sandy's house....

 

[LoatharMDPhD]

member guys... this is all on a 486 with 8mb ram....